Download: Non-Finite Verb Forms in Persian

Legend:

• Group: Etymological related participles are pooled in the table below into serially numbered groups.
• Verbal Root: This column contains the verbal roots with Persian or foreign origin used in Persian.

  These verbal roots are in New Persian bound morphemes and no affixal formations (they do not consist of inflectional affixes like the prefixes /be-/ and /næ-/ or the suffix /-æn/ and /-ɒn/, but they may contain Middle Persian affixes like /ɒ-/ in /ɒræm/, /æf-/ in /æfkæn/ and /pæʒ-/ in /pæʒmor/).

  Verbal roots are normally reconstructed speculatively, because thay do not appear free with this role.

• Present Participle: It corresponds mostly to the verbal root, but some present participles generated by mutation (apophony (Indo-European Ablaut) and grammatical alteration according to the Verner’s Law).
• Mutation: The mutation used in the generation of the present participle (“—” = Semi-syntaxd / irregular mutation).
• Infinitive: The infinitives listed in this column are derived directly from verbal roots or present participles in the former columns, and are generated using the dental suffix /-tæn/ (accompanied potentially by epentheses).

  Past participles are not listed in this table, as they are generated according the same rules, but with the dental suffix /-t/.

  The perfect and the presumptive participle are also not listed here, as they are affixal derivates of the past participle.

• Alternative Infinitive: Combinative and free variation in stems of the dental suffixes /-tæn/ and /-t/ causes the generation of alternative infinitives and past participles in Persian frequently: The regular form of thes non-finite verb forms (derived from verbal roots or present participles) can be alternated by exchanging the long vowels /ɒ/, /i/ and /u/ by their short allophones [æ], [e] and [o], respectively. (see 12•۱•a.).
• Derived Infinitive: Infinitives, that are directly derived from derived present participles:

  In Persian, new present participles can be derived from other present participles (and rarely past participles) using the inflectional suffix /-ɒn/ (see 20•۲•c.). In this process, the following modifcations occure normally:

  • intransitive non-finite verb forms are converted to transitive present participles, and
  • transitive non-finite verb forms are converted to causative present participles.

  The inflectional suffix /-ɒn/ is in this function with present participles unlimitedly productive. The present participles listed in this table are only the evidences, whose lemmas (infinitives) are registered in lexicons.

  The application of the inflectional suffix /-æn/ with present participles is most rarely (see 20•۲•c.). In this case, transitive present participles are converted to intransitive present participles.

• Distortional Infinitive: Infinitives, that are registered in Persian lexicons as lemmas, but are very likely inadvertent distorsions (of diacritics, in most cases).